San Fran Trip part 1

We started our trip off early Friday morning to San Francisco!  Tom’s sister showed up after about 2 hours of sleep at 4 in the morning!  Now, thats not her fault, its honestly our fault for not packing earlier than 6 hours before you leave!  When we arrived to the airport we quickly were informed that our flight was overbooked!  Wonderful way to start the morning!  However, flying out early has its benefits!  As much as it sucked to not get any sleep, it was to our benefit as quite a few people had a harder time dragging their butts out of bed and didn’t make it in time.  So needless to say, their loss was our win!    

  

  Once arriving in San Francisco it was time to find our hotel, a feat which proved quite challenging for Tom.  I did not know the name of the Motel as that was up to Tom to set up the hotel accomadations.  Carrying our packs and sleeping bags around a busy city made me very nervous!  After walking a block, and then circling the block we entered in the same building that we originally arrived at on, but on the back side of the street.  Yes, we walked around the building to enter in the back door (no pun intended it just came out that way).  To Tom’s defense, the sign that said “Powell Hotel” was not that large to begin with.  We checked in and laid down for a quick nap, well Tom laid down for a quick nap, I watched tv and listened to him snore for a couple hours.  

  Finally it was time to set off and explore the city for a bit!  With our bags safely at the Hotel my nervousness was completely gone!  We hopped on the F-Line and rode all the way to Fishermans Wharf.  I must say the wharf is pretty freaking sweet!  I loved the little shops, the sweet smelling pastries, and of course the fresh sea food!  Well, some of the seafood smelled great, other parts stunk to high heaven!  My favorite stop on the Wharf was by far the movie memorabilia store.  We took photo’s with Zoltar from the Tom Hanks movie “Big” and Johnny Dep’s hat from “Alice in Wonderland.”  From there we stopped to eat some fresh clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.  Unfortunately for me the bread bowl (however far out of my diet) was not as good as I expected. There wasn’t any sand in my clam chowder, but there also wasn’t any clams either!  I think I ended up with more of a cream of potato soup (which is fine if thats what you want) in a stale croutonish type bowl.  However I must say that the lemon crumble was simply the best lemon crumble I’ve ever devoured!  

  

  From there we saw some of the most amazing billboards, for something that used to be a staple for Tom and I, yet do to our diet and extreme exercise programs, this has definitely been off our menu for quite some time, ice cream! The signs for Ghirardelli had pushed my will power to the breaking point, and lets face it, its my vacation I should enjoy it! Maybe its because I’m not used to eating them any more, or the fact that it just wasn’t what my mind had led me to believe, but the sunday was not as good as I had hoped, I did eat it all, but it just wasn’t as good as I had hoped for.  

  Now it was getting time to head back to the hotel as it was beginning to get cooler and we needed our jackets so we headed back towards the F-Line.  The F-Line provided some great entertainment in the form of a pair of wanna be gangsters.  These scowling faced youngsters were rapping about some girl in the hood that made their dread locks twirl, quite sad, yet funny, I made sure I kept one hand on my wallet the entire time they were in our presence.  

  With our jackets in tow we headed off to Castro.  I was nervous at first but I don't think I’ve ever felt safer in my life!  Everyone we encountered at Castro was very friendly, very open and everyone had a smile on their face.  You felt like you were attending a high-school reunion, but only your closest friends showed up and it was at your grandma’s house.  Seriously there has never been a city/town/club/store I have ever gone to that can compare to the feeling I had at Castro street.  We were fortunate to see where Harvey Milk opened his store and the apartment that he lived in.  Simply amazing and spiritual feeling, I don't know how else to explain it.  The book store had books that I’m positive you would never be able to find in the local Salt Lake book store, however I’m kicking myself for not buying the official “Little Britain” season 1 and 2 book complete with scripts!  In fact I’m going to login to Amazon right after I’m finished writing to order it, I think I have a couple ideas for that book!  The night was no longer upon us and it was the early morning when we decided to head back so that Tom could cut down a couple of redwood tree’s (his snoring if you didn’t catch that) and I could watch some infomercials for the rest of the night.  

  The reason for the trip had finally arrived!  It was finally the day that we were fortunate enough to stay at Alcatraz overnight!  Truly a once in a life time experience for a naturally born angel like myself who under normal circumstances will never have a chance to stay over night, little alone in jail, but in the most notorious prison ever!  We were dressed and ready to go, probably a little to early, ok, WAY to early, 8:AM, and we did not have to be there till 4:PM, luckily we had to wait for our friends to get there before we would head out.  Once Cole (S-Cole) Katie, Waldo and Christi arrived (actually Christi and Waldo had the room behind us the night before and we never knew. But then again who could hear over Tom’s snoring) we headed out to the Wharf with all our gear in tow. We had plenty of time to kill and decided to have lunch at the famous Johnny Rockets, location for a film you may have heard of called “American Graffiti.”  I must say I totally understand why their tuna melt is a favorite!  As cousin Eddy would say it was “Good eatin!”  

  So with lunch out of the way, we were now waiting for the ship to take us to Alcatraz! Hopping on the boat reminded me all to much of the cruise we went on, yet small, it still didn’t rock like the Carnival ship!  Although I must say I’d rather stay in an old abandoned/haunted prison for a week than a cruise ship for a week!  Much more stable and it doesn’t take time to get over the rocking of the island.  We arrived and started our service project, a service project that I figured would be digging a ditch or picking up trash, but the service project they had planned for us was much more intense!  We had to move chairs from one side of the building to the other!  If that isn’t back breaking work I don't know what is!  If you cant tell thats total sarcasm.  Anyway, after the intense back breaking service project we started the tour that savillians do, a video, followed by a recorded guided tour of the prison.  Very informative and I learned a lot of information about the prison.  So if any of you end up on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” you definitely should add me as a lifeline!  Following the tour we started our BBQ at one of the restored buildings in preparation for a behind the scenes tour from our guide Ranger George (who looks strikingly like Bob Saget).  As the last ship left the island we started up the corridors through narrow steps.  The concrete steps were so deteriorated that only one person could go up them at a time, and had to stay to one side as the middle part had rotted away!  The end of our climb was to the roof of the main building!  As some one who is not a fan of heights, my movements were slow along the uneven surface, and the painfully cold night!  From atop the prison we saw the hatch that 3 inmates escaped from years ago and were never found.  I wont bore you with all the details of the behind the scenes tour but will let you know of the highlights a general visitor will not get to see, we had access to the chapel, gun chambers (where the guards had guns to point at the inmates if needed) the roof, cell block A, the dungeon/foundation, the old laundry building, the one and only tunnel on the island, and the rear access routes to all the cells.  By far the scariest place was the dungeon where soldiers were kept that went A-Wall during the war!  When the lights were turned off we heard some unexplained crashes throughout the dungeon, scary yes, but everyone was safe as long as I was there.  

  After the tour guide had gone to his quarters for the night it was time for some good old fashion ghost hunting!  Now it wasn’t one of the most active nights that we all were hoping to have, however Tom and  I did witness,  with the ghost hunters a disembodied sigh in the cell blocks, voices and odd creaks in the kitchen area, and some cold breezes followed by  uncomfortable feelings in some of the closed off cells.  Not sure we were supposed to be going into the cells we did as they were closed off, but one in the middle of a bunch of closed off cells we found an open cell!  This is where people that stayed up with us had a hard time going into.  I wish we would have had a more active ghost night, but by 4 A.M. I was ready for bed!   The only problem with going to bed at 4 a.m is Tom had gone to bed at about 2 a.m When we walked in to cell block D (our home for the night) Tom was in his cell snoring like a freight train breeding with a bear.  Not the best thing to have to hear as you walk into the bottom level and he’s clear up on the 2nd level!  I’m just glad everyone else could hear him snoring as well!  But I was exhausted as a cat in the hot sun, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from sleeping!  I must say, those inmates had it made!  The cot’s were so comfortable i slept better (for the three hours we actually slept) then I did the entire rest of the trip!

To be continued soon.....